India Travel Stories

My friend Brett Conrad died yesterday, ironically I called his home the day after his death. Brett was instrumental in the founding of the web site HoboTraveler.com. He was a friend who donated his time to help create the first databases and PHP work on the site.

He died of cancer, I am not sure how to explain, yet I know he helped to me on the path to my Hobo freedom. He was like a younger brother to me, full of questions, ideas and hopes.

He wrote me to explain he was dying, we exchanged a few words between friends.

I was evasive and said,- I have decided to lighten up on blogging while in the USA, as not so good to have the whole world know my home town. -

I live in somewhere, somehow, small town USA, a great place to live and everyone knows my name. I am a legacy, I have the inherent right to membership to this ethnic group, I am part of the tribe. I will never lose my colors or rights to membership.

I however, what is information of the tribe, should in a way stay with the tribe.

There is a responsibility to the human race, I naturally deny it, nonetheless, I continually need to accept, a person does not just have the right to say anything for anybody to read.

The whole planet fights, gets angry and frustrated, the USA is the has, and they are the have nots.

Some Amish guy asked me what they do in other countries, I said,

Same as the USA.Complain about no money.Talk about problems with politicians.Go pray to some God, and hope he, she or it fixes the problems.

Then they go and buy something and talk about how life is terrible.

But they do where different clothes, eat different foods, and talk different languages. This is what is fun.

I am in a plush world, and everyone is telling me their problems.

I have realized normally a person will only complain about things they can change, it is as if there is the annoying hope, the ever present hope for change.

Why do they always hope for more, they annoy me, I am tired of wanting more and more. I want less and less, I am wanting leave so I am not overwhelmed with having everything.

A complainer has hope.A person with no hope stops complaining, and accepts.

The USA has anything and everything, I tried to buy knockoff Reeboks made in Indonesia when I was there. I could not find my style, or the style I wanted. Why do I need to return to the USA to buy what is made in Indonesia?

Only in the USA…

Only in the USA can I be what I want to be, a Hobo and travel around the planet… hehehe

Does not make sense, but it makes sense, thanks to the overabundance in the USA and the never give up Americanism, I have created my niche in life.

Now, I can go out and annoy the rest of the planet, complain about everything and always have hope.

I am in the United States of America and trying to connect to the internet. It is annoying as I realize how helpless I am here in the USA. There is no internet café whereby I can bypass all the other problems. I could drive 150 miles to Chicago and find an internet café, or 50 miles to a library to find a connection or sit on a telephone line for hours trying to connect.

There is a I cannot be bothered time limit to get an internet connection, I am often amazed at the amount of time a person will indulge in what they consider is a high-speed connection, yet they had to go to drive, travel, pay a fortune to get this high speed connection. I am just looking for a simple connection, oh well, I will be back in India in 7 days and there are many internet cafes.

I hear people who say to me, I do not have time to blog. Let us be real, a blog is either an attempt to me ourselves famous or it is semi-personal an private diary. Then again some people had better not ever say or write what they think or they will throw them in jail.

I try to post daily for business reason, however, the real value for me to blog is I get to daily write in my Journal, a.k.a diary and talk to myself and reveal what was known, but not understood. Then even when I cannot publish for days or weeks, I still had the value, and who really cares about business, it is just something we do that gets in the way of what we really want to do.

Too Much Where I do Not Want to BeDelhi, India AsiaTuesday, February 13, 2007

A man must know his limitations, as my friend Jeff says and probably Clint Eastwood.

Travel is not the problem for me, the problem is not that I need to go home, the problem is I have spent too much time in places where I do not want to be. I need to go to a place that is good for me.

I think maybe a person becomes surrounded by either things or ideas, or worst yet they allow themselves to become surrounded in a cocoon. I suppose the womb of a mother is holding a baby in a perfect world, then the baby leaves and slowly the world either creates a cocoon, maybe a womb is correct, however, there is a world that is either good feeling or a slow insidious bad feeling.

I like the ideas of continuums where, hmm, the adjectives go from a negative to a positive, there is a line of sight. The line of sight out of a negative feeling is not easy, however I have learned the hard way a person needs to find their happy spot. Who was it, Wendy in the Movie Peter Pan who was telling Peter played by Robin Williams to find his - Happy Thought - and then he could return to Never Never land… I guess it was Tinkerbell.

PETER PAN - From my Encarta Encyclopedia:

- Peter Pan (motion picture) … tells the story of Peter Pan, an otherworldly boy who befriends Wendy Darling and her younger brothers John and Michael after Wendy helps him retain control of his rogue shadow. Pan uses fairy dust from Tinkerbell, his tiny companion and romantic hopeful, to enable the Darling children to fly with him far away to Never-Never Land. There they meet and do battle with exciting villains, such as a group of pirates led by Captain Hook … -

My guess is what a traveler travels until they know why they travel, or we are searching for - Never Never Land - or - Oz.

I would say that the Paha Gang area of Delhi is the second most, or second dirtiest area of tourism on the planet so far in my opinion. While Varanasi, India is the dirtiest on the planet so far in my places I have visited.

The site HoboTraveler.com is a collection of approximately 150 of the top topics or subjects that apply to a traveler, and in this situation tourist.

How this site evolved is I wanted to make navigation for a site. A person does not know the navigation for huge sites when they start, they must evolve, change and adapt. I think they call this site architecture, however in reality the terms or jargon are not important unless I want to study.

I started making a list of subject of importance to travelers, in a way I am trying to reverse list topics for my Top Traveler Sites of 2006 or Top Travel Sites in general.

Generally the Top Travel Sites in a way should be in my opinion the Top 10 needed subjects. Top ten to me first is about needs and safety, however as I read or study this topic or search for idea, I find that most travel writers want to make the Ten Most Popular, this is to me a huge difference.

Worst - BestIn my list of 150 most needed subject or in the index page of HoboTraveler.com is one of those topic I added later, yet has gone nowhere. This topic is the Worst - Best.

WORST- BEST

I have done little work on this subject, I do think about it, however a very difficult subject, however, probably the most desired topic of Tourist. A person will sit in their home or office and dream of places to go, of the best beach, the biggest party, the most hedonistic place on the planet. The most interesting architecture or the most or best spiritual places on the planet.

Many would say that India is the best spiritual place on the planet, this then starts the problem. It is an opinion, then an opinion is a comparison. How can on person decide which country is most spiritual? How do they go to 252-309 countries on the planet, then make the decision.

There was a sign in Pokjara referencing the New York Times 1000 places to visit before you die, and they seem to be saying something about a Fish Tail Lodge. I keep looking towards the place, and thinking about walking to the Hotel, however it seem like one of the worst locations and designs for a hotel on the lake. While the View Point Lodge, a sort of grubby looking place on the other end seem to have a great location. These are all opinions and truthfully the Fish Tail or whatever the name is could be the best Hotel in Pokjara for you, while at the same time it can be the worst for me.

I am thinking of descriptors or adjectives or hmm, are these adverbs. The definitions below. (2) I find or think I am of adjectives when I say the Worst or most, however maybe descriptors or identifiers when I am talking about navigation of a website.

ADVERB:modifier of verb or adjective: a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a sentence, for example, “happily,” “very,” or “frankly”

ADJECTIVE:word qualifying noun: a word that qualifies or describes a noun or pronoun

DESCRIPTOR:computing describing thing: something, for example, a word or phrase, used as a key to categorize records in a database so that all records containing the key can be retrieved together

IDENTIFIER:something that identifies data: a symbol that identifies, indicates, or names a body of data

When people complain about the navigation of my website they are expressing a belief about how I have designed the architecture or chosen descriptors and identifiers. I know I have fortunately chosen the best, because I am capable of adapting, evolving and modifying the site into a larger site. It think the term is scalability.

SCALABILITY (2)2. variable: used to describe computer graphics fonts generated by an algorithm that permits the size to vary proportionately over a wide range3. expandable: used to describe a computer, component, or network that can be expanded to meet future needs.

The Scalability of HoboTraveler.com was designed perfect, what is horrible is the lack of alternative methods of navigation. Nope, I am wrong, the problem is clarity within the bounds of size. The size of the site and the multiple sections of interest, causes a convolution of mindsets.We are making a site of all the Hotels and Accommodations on the planted called HoboHideOut.comhttp://www.hobohideout.com

There is about 8 Million cities in a very approximate way, and I am wildly guessing however about 20-70 Million Hotels, Guesthouse or types of lodging on the planet.

The navigation for this site is easier to decide on than HoboTraveler.com because generally people think of in the same terms or ideas.

Funding and ideas is the problem, there is needed enough money to pay for the collecting and categorizing of ideas to make a good site. However, there also somehow needs to be some insight or empathy into what the visitors are looking for in a site. It would be hoped, and desired that I can empathize with other travelers to make travel sites. I often am fully aware of what people want to hear or think about in a travel site and ignore them as boorish people, readers or visitors hoping they will go away.

I am fully aware that a soap opera can make a lot of money, yet I am not going to produce a soap opera in this life. There are subjects I am interested in and others I am not passionate about.

Talking about how dirty the Paha Ganj area of Delhi is good fun, to live here is not. I truly believe people that love India are somehow getting in touch with their misbehaving child. They are getting to break all the rules of civilized people in one country, they can deny their religion, they can urinate or defecate in the streets, they can go for weeks without showering and they would be normal. They can talk religion in the most confused and in my view stupid manners and call it a spiritual awaking and probably is they just is anger.

Trying to escape the noise, I have put a wool blanket up over the window trying to shut out the noise. I do not know what to do, I only have to last until tomorrow night, then I can leave, oops, I need to return on the 22-3 of February, back into the fire.

I am amiss to understand how the world feels very little remorse about creating unlimited amounts of noise. Do people really not care how much they annoy people, or they just totally oblivious to the feelings or others around them.